


grit your teeth, clench your jaw

by screechfox



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Boneturning, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 02:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20649365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screechfox/pseuds/screechfox
Summary: Michael Crew is the Boneturner, and he has to find a different way to stop the Archivist's questions.





	grit your teeth, clench your jaw

**Author's Note:**

> so i may have posted this earlier this week and then deleted it five minutes later because i was having A Day, but now i am feeling better about life and writing, so i figure why not give it another go?

“Where did you get that scar?” Jon asks, because he has to — to  _ not _ ask is unthinkable.

Mike lets out a long sigh, shaking his head.

“I was trying  _ so _ hard to be polite,” he mutters.

With a resigned calm that only emphasises the subtle strangeness of his movements, Mike reaches out and grasps Jon’s jaw. Jon tries to flinch back, but Mike’s fingers sink into his flesh until pale skin meets paler bone. It’s an agony unlike any Jon has felt before; some hungry part of his brain catalogues every subtlety of the sensation. He doesn’t dare move a millimetre.

“Is privacy so much to ask for? Really?”

Mike moves his fingers upwards until they rest on the hinge of Jon’s jaw. With no sign of hesitation, he presses down, and his head tilts in detached curiosity as Jon struggles against the sheer white-hot  _ wrongness _ of the feeling. If Jon could scream, he would, but his mouth refuses to obey his commands and the sound is strangled in his throat.

Whatever Mike is doing, it only takes him thirty seconds at most. Then he leans back and takes a sip of his tea. As he watches Jon, his gaze is tired but… hungry. Anticipatory, like a wolf would watch some wounded creature it intends to eat.

Jon tries to speak, to ask what the  _ hell _ Mike just did to him, but— his mouth refuses to open. In a painful mixture of terror and interest, Jon probes his fingers against his cheeks. Beneath his skin, the bones have become unified, solid and immovable. His muscles still tense and relax as he strains against this limitation, but he can barely manage the slightest of movements.

“Difficult, isn’t it?” Mike’s tone is quietly wry. “No more asking prying questions when your jaw is fused shut. You can make all the noise you like, but  _ words? _ Those are far beyond you.”

Jon moves to stand up, to get out of here— but where could he go? The only creature that he knows can reverse this is sitting in front of him and drinking tea with serene amusement. Besides, it isn’t as though he could easily explain this to Georgie.

“There is something satisfying about seeing the Archivist robbed of all that clever interrogation, I’ll admit. It’s not everyday that I can really enjoy myself with a project.”

Jon’s blood runs cold, and he does his very best to protest. Is  _ that _ why Jude sent him here? To occupy a monster with a  _ project? _ Mike’s lips quirk at the muffled sounds coming from behind Jon’s lips. His smile is like a bloody wound across the bottom of his face.

“I’d save a lot of people a lot of trouble if I just left you like that, you know.”

Without his voice, Jon is just about helpless. It’s a sharp, sobering realisation, made all the worse by how his questions  _ shouldn’t _ be a weapon to rely on. He can’t get comfortable with whatever the Eye is turning him into. Perhaps, some unhappy corner of his mind thinks, Mike would save  _ Jon _ a lot of trouble if he left him without any hope of coherent speech.

Mike watches him for a long moment, a contemplative expression crossing his face. Jon resists the urge to press his own fingers to his cheeks again, to explore every unnatural dip and crevice that Mike has shaped. Better if he just doesn’t think about it, he tells himself, even as he itches with curiosity.

“I like your lot better than I like the others I’d be helping, though,” Mike continues, smiling at Jon’s simultaneous relief and horror. “Nothing quite emphasises the idea we’re all just meat with aspirations like  _ knowing _ every detail of how your body works.”

Mike leans forwards again until Jon, shifting backwards, is trapped against too-yielding cushions. Mike’s hands rest on the arms of Jon’s chair, a cage of bone and gristle.

“Don’t worry,” Mike tells him, no longer the beast watching the wounded animal but the caretaker trying to soothe it. “I’ll let you crawl back home eventually. It’s just…”

Jon’s breath stills as Mike’s fingers caress the skin of his cheek once more.

“You need to learn some respect.”

**Author's Note:**

> and then mike gives his statement, daisy does her thing but because he's a flesh avatar he's totally more resilient and then mike and jon meet again in helen's corridors later and it probably gets as weird as this fic was meant to, and i may or may not write it. 
> 
> as always you can find me at [screechfoxes](https://screechfoxes.tumblr.com) on tumblr. have a good day!


End file.
